


Speak freely of our acts, or else our grave

by sunspeared



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Genre: F/F, Gen, Historical Memory, Kal'Hirol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-20
Updated: 2016-03-20
Packaged: 2018-05-27 04:23:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6269527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunspeared/pseuds/sunspeared
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>It's rare that Sigrun sounds bitter about dwarf things. She usually sounds resigned. </i>
</p><p>  <i>She should be furious.</i></p><p> </p><p>Sigrun and Velanna, and refusing to be forgotten by history.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Speak freely of our acts, or else our grave

**Author's Note:**

  * For [serenityfails](https://archiveofourown.org/users/serenityfails/gifts).



_Or lay these bones in an unworthy urn,_  
_Tombless, with no remembrance over them:_  
_Either our history shall with full mouth_  
_Speak freely of our acts, or else our grave_

*

After Amaranthine is saved—Velanna couldn't care less, she reminds herself—and after they drive the darkspawn back from the Vigil, it still takes months before they can return to Kal'Hirol.

The Warden-Commander wants a base of operations for expeditions into the Deep Roads. The Legion of the Dead is glad to scout the route to Kal'Hirol, and meet the Wardens in the middle, while they build up their numbers, and get their hands dirty right alongside them. Orzammar is gathering up an army to do most of the work, to clear out the tunnels between this thaig and theirs, but they need scouts, and a clear route. 

This is all politics. Velanna _couldn't_ care less. The only thing that matters is finding clues as to where Seranni might have gone. She'll play along with this expedition, if it will get her where she needs to go.

"And the Shaperate is more than happy to make a substantial donation to the Grey Wardens, if it'll let them get down here before any of the Noble houses do," Sigrun says, kicking at a loose stone on the ground. "They get to make the story of what happened here."

It's rare that Sigrun sounds bitter about dwarf things. She usually sounds resigned. 

She should be _furious._

And she doesn't know how lucky she is to have a Shaperate, Velanna thinks. One group of people, in one place, dedicated to preserving every little detail of her people's history, every birth, every death, every book, every word in their old tongue. Shaper Valta, the only person Orzammar sent with the Legion through the tunnels, has a head full of so many stories—of the heroes of her people, of famous battles and lost thaigs—that Velanna would give up her left arm to have the same, for the People.

"You didn't have to come," Velanna says, burning another swathe of tunnel clean. Since Anders disappeared—died, on paper—he was insufferable, anyway, and his fireballs had been pitiful, and he took Justice with him—they've gotten a few more Circle mages, elves, all of them, with some interesting ideas about burning darkspawn corruption off of stone walls, and just how much mana to put behind a flame to get the most power.

"I did," says Sigrun. "I really did." 

Velanna never knows what Nathaniel is thinking. Warden-Commander Tabris only softens up when Alistair is around. The other mages are too close-lipped to talk to; they see her as some sort of Keeper they shouldn't offend, let something terrible happen to them. But she _always_ knows what Sigrun is thinking. 

"It wasn't your fault," Velanna says, when they get to the end of the tunnel. Whatever magic that lights the Deep Roads has failed, past here; Sigrun presses a hand into Velanna's arm. _Stop._ They know the routine, by now. Sigrun, one dagger drawn, tosses a stone into the dark part of the passageway, and when nothing descends on it, she nods for Velanna to send a light down into the dark. "You did what you could. You don't have to punish yourself for the deaths of your"—not clan—"Legion." 

Sigrun doesn't speak. Not for a long while. 

"What do you think will happen when Orzammar gets here?" she asks, finally, almost too softly for Velanna to hear. 

Maybe she doesn't always know what Sigrun is thinking.

Velanna chooses that moment to let loose a fireball, and she covers her face with a wet cloth, as she keeps it burning. Sigrun doesn't. Sigrun never seems to notice the smell of darkspawn.

"You saw the spirits," Sigrun continues, under the sound of the flames. "You saw the list of names of the casteless who stood and defended Kal'Hirol. The Shaper took them down in her book, but do you think the Shaperate will bother recording them?"

The flame reaches the end of its useful life. Velanna cuts it off with a stamp of her staff on the ground. The corruption in the walls sloughs to the ground, and Velanna retches, and feels Sigrun's stone-cool hand on the back of her neck, easing her through it.

"Make them," Velanna says, when her stomach stops trying to come out her throat.

"What?" 

"Stop feeling bad about yourself and make them do what you want. You're not a casteless Legionnaire, you're Warden-Constable Sigrun. _Make_ them record the names. You know the Warden-Commander will stand with you."

"Seriah has bigger problems—"

Tabris's is face is marked like one of the People, but not. Tabris, the rumors say, murdered her way through a noble's entire estate, before she was conscripted into the Grey Wardens. _Do you know any stories about elven heroes?_ she'd asked, once, and Velanna had told her what little she could. She is not much for tales, or telling tales aloud, and, in any event, there are not many stories to tell.

But here, now, the casteless, who are not the Dalish, who most Dalish know little of, have a new tale to tell themselves. Velanna won't let it go untold.

"She will." Velanna shuts her eyes, looks inside herself, to see how much more she can do today. Not much. They still have to get back to the encampment, and there's no telling what might have gotten into the tunnels between here and there, despite their best efforts. Sigrun, idly toying with a dagger, looks up at her, waiting for her to elaborate. "Do you think," she says, "that there's any chance she won't be glad to break some spoiled nobles over her knee, shemlen or otherwise? If she refuses, _I'll_ make her."

There. That makes Sigrun smile. If she can bring that look to Sigrun's face, Velanna, who is a murderer a dozen times over, who is using a respectable, important organization only for news of her sister, knows there's still something good in her.

"You're running low," Sigrun says. "Come on, let's go back."

"No. Tell me you'll bring it up with the Warden-Commander." 

"Yes, Velanna," Sigrun sighs, "I'll tell Seriah I'm worried the Shaperate will ignore the last stand in defense of Kal'Hirol, and that she should raise a big stink about it. Happy?"

"No. Try, 'Yes, Velanna, I'll raise the Void at Shaper Valta if she even suggests that the Shaperate might ignore the list of two hundreds Casteless who sacrificed their lives to keep this thaig safe, and _then_ I'll have the Warden-Commander raise the Void at the king of Orzammar, if that doesn't work.'"

Sigrun and Nathaniel have the same look on their faces, when they're indulging her. It doesn't matter. They go along with what she wants, anyway. "Yes, Velanna." She pats Velanna's shoulder. 

But she means it. No matter what Velanna knows she is, it's the least she can do, to remind Sigrun that she's powerful, now, that she's worthy, that she deserves to be loved and respected—that she is all of those things, to the Wardens. She must be delirious from mana depletion, if she's this... sentimental. 

It's Sigrun—Sigrun, who can always tell when she's low, despite her being a dwarf, and despite Velanna being the first mage she ever met; Sigrun, who takes her hand, gently, one dagger held loose in the other. "Let's get you something to eat," Sigrun says, and guides them back to the base camp.


End file.
